The start of April has seen the cost of living rise sharply for many. Council tax, water bills, gas bills and electricity bills have all been hiked upwards. Many workers at Network Rail, however, are still awaiting their pay increase due back in January.
In February, a paltry 2.6% base rate of pay increase was offered for all General Grades, Bands 5-8 (and equivalents) and Controllers at Network Rail. This represents a real terms pay cut. Since then, the RMT has repeatedly informed its members of meetings and meetings about meetings.
We are now three months into the year, and RMT has still not escalated the struggle for a better pay offer. Without an effective industrial dispute soon, there is the very real danger that members will grow increasingly despondent and frustrated, and the carrot of accepting whatever back-pay has built up will become more attractive to an increasing number. The union should stop the delay and prepare for a ballot for strikes, and begin preparations for an effective campaign of industrial action.
Elsewhere in the public sector, NHS workers and teachers have all been offered 2.8%. It seems highly unlikely that, even if anything positive were to come out of them, mere meetings between RMT and Network Rail would budge the 2.6% offer above the 2.8% figure being offered to other public sector workers. School workers' union NEU is balloting its members in an indicative ballot on whether to strike over their proposed pay "increase". Ultimately, the body calling the shots for Network Rail, the NHS, and schools is one and the same: the Labour government. RMT must unite our struggle with other public sector workers' unions, and fight the Labour government for a real terms pay increase.
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